• 3 minutes e-car sales collapse
  • 6 minutes America Is Exceptional in Its Political Divide
  • 11 minutes Perovskites, a ‘dirt cheap’ alternative to silicon, just got a lot more efficient
  • 4 hours GREEN NEW DEAL = BLIZZARD OF LIES
  • 7 days If hydrogen is the answer, you're asking the wrong question
  • 22 hours How Far Have We Really Gotten With Alternative Energy
  • 11 days Biden's $2 trillion Plan for Insfrastructure and Jobs
Gold Recycling Goes Green with Biodiesel Innovation

Gold Recycling Goes Green with Biodiesel Innovation

Chalmers University researchers introduce an…

5 Weird Energy Innovations That May Become Reality

5 Weird Energy Innovations That May Become Reality

Scientists are always busy to…

Charles Kennedy

Charles Kennedy

Charles is a writer for Oilprice.com

More Info

Premium Content

Biden May Cut 2022 Biofuel Blending Mandates: Report

  • Reuters: President Joe Biden is considering a cut to this year's biofuels blending mandates
Corn Ethanol

President Joe Biden is considering a cut to this year's biofuels blending mandates focusing on ethanol and eying a cut below the 15 billion gallons proposed by the EPA, Reuters has reported, quoting unnamed sources close to the White House.

The move comes after last month the Environmental Protection Agency proposed lower biofuels blending mandates for 2020 and 2021 in a bid to quell the growing concern about oil refiners about their blending bill amid soaring inflation. Yet at the time, the EPA kept the 2022 mandates higher, at 20.77 billion gallons in total, according to a December Reuters report. The bulk of this biofuels mix is ethanol.

That proposal, however, did not meet with enthusiasm from the downstream industry, with the American Petroleum Institute commenting the EPA "would best serve the public interest by keeping compliance volumes feasible."

The idea did not draw praise from the ethanol industry, either.

"This decision is an about-face by President Joe Biden who campaigned on his supposed support for renewable fuels," said Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican from ethanol-producing major Iowa, in December.

Following a backlash from the oil and ethanol industries, the EPA considered a further reduction in ethanol mandates to 14.1 billion gallons, but later apparently reconsidered and restored the original proposal for 15 billion barrels of ethanol.

This time, however, the bioethanol industry has a new problem: according to the Reuters sources, the industry is shrinking and will find it hard to reach the biofuel blending targets that the EPA sets for it.

"EPA remains committed to the growth of biofuels in America," Nick Conger, a spokesperson for the agency, said as quoted by Reuters this week. "We look forward to reviewing the robust comments that we receive from all stakeholders before finalizing our rulemaking later this year."

"The White House is caught between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they want to support the agricultural and biofuel industry, but they have been bombarded by unions and refiners who say there's not enough ethanol and they are listening," one of the Reuters sources said.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

ADVERTISEMENT

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:


Download The Free Oilprice App Today

Back to homepage





Leave a comment
  • Craig Washington on January 13 2022 said:
    Finally, since 2001, gasoline mileage will finally improve. For youngsters or those of us who might've forgotten, there was some sort of policy to relieve corn farmers of their surpluses by turning corn into Ethanol and injecting into unleaded gasoline for the purpose of "cleaner" emissions. Results= about a 10-15% decrease in gas mileage prior to the Ethanol mix.

    Good riddance.
  • DoRight Deikins on January 23 2022 said:
    Corn has always been a very inefficient (i.e. expensive and wasteful) method of producing ethanol. And it is a wasteful method for blending in gasoline, as Craig pointed out.

    On the other hand, ethanol from corn has been a blessing to the small scale corn farmers in Central America. They no longer have to compete with surplus US corn dumped at unsustainable (unlivable) prices. At least it is a blessing to the few small scale farmers who didn't have to sell out to the large landowners/politicians who have turned those small family farms into cattle factories to feed China.

Leave a comment




EXXON Mobil -0.35
Open57.81 Trading Vol.6.96M Previous Vol.241.7B
BUY 57.15
Sell 57.00
Oilprice - The No. 1 Source for Oil & Energy News